Bon. The Epitome of virtues, Who like the pretious reliques of a Saint Ought only to be seene, not touchd.
Tho. Yet heare me;
Cease your immoderate prayses: I must tell you
You doe adore an Idoll; her black Soule
Is tainted as an Apple which the Sunn
Has kist to putrifaction; she is
(Her proper appelation sounds so foule
I quake to speake it) a corrupted peice,
A most lascivious prostitute.
Bon. Howes this?
Speake it agen, that if the sacrilege
Thou'st made gainst vertue be but yet sufficient
To yeild thee dead, the iteration of it
May damne thee past the reach of mearcye. Speake it,
While thou hast utterance left; but I conceit
A lie soe monstrous cannot chuse but choake
The vocall powers, or like a canker rott
Thy tung in the delivery.
Tho. Sir, your rage
Cannot inforce a recantacion from me:
I doe pronounce her light as is a leafe
In withered Autumne shaken from the trees
By the rude winds: noe specld serpent weares
More spotts than her pide honor.
Bon. So, no more:
Thy former words incenst me but to rage;
These to a fury which noe sea of teares,
Though shed by queenes or Orphants, shall extinguish;
Nay, should my mother rise from her cold urne
And weepe herself to death againe to save
Thee from perdition, 't should not; were there placd
Twixt thee and mee a host of blasing starrs,
Thus I would through them to thee! [_Draw.
Tho_. Had I knowne
Your passion would have vanquishd reason thus,
You should have met your ruine unadvisd;
Hugd your destruction; taken what the lust
Of other men had left you. But the name
And soule of friendship twixt us I had thought
Would have retain'd this most unmanly rage
Gainst me, for declaration of a truth
By which you might be ransomed from the armes
Of her adulterate honor.
Bon. Yes, kind foole;
Perswade an Indian who has newly div'd
Into the ocean and obtaind a pearle,
To cast it back againe; labour t'induce
Turkes to contemne their Alcoron ere you strive
To make me creditt my Belissia false. [Kneele.
Forgive me, holy love, that I delay
So long to scourge the more than heathnish wrongs
Of this iniurious villaine, whome me thinks—
Blow him hence to hell
With his contagious slander! yet before
Thou doest fall by me as, if heaven have not
Lost all its care of Innocence, thou must doe,
Tell me what Divell urgd thee to detract
From virtue thus, for of thy selfe thou couldst not
(Unlesse with thee shee hath bin vicious) know it
Without some information: whoes the Author
Of this prodigious calumnie?
Tho. Her mother.
Bon. Ha! her mother?
Tho. Yes, she; that certaine Oracle of truth,
That pretious mine of honor, which before
She would exhaust, or yeild your innocence
A spoyle to vice, chose rather to declare
Her daughter's folly; and with powerfull teares
Besought me, by the love I bore to goodnes,
Which in her estimation had a roome
Higher than Nature, to reveale it to you
And disingage you from her.